Free Republic

Martini gets OK as federal judge MITCHEL MADDUX Former Rep. Bill Martini has been confirmed as a New Jersey federal judge by the U.S. Senate. Martini, 55, a Republican who lives in Clifton and practices law in Newark, is a former federal prosecutor who also has served as a Passaic County freeholder. A member of a prominent Passaic County family long involved in politics, he serves as a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Martini will have to resign from the agency, and Governor McGreevey will name his replacement on the 12-person board. Martini said...

Harvard Law School has always been in the vanguard. It is America’s oldest law school; it pioneered the case method of teaching law, and was the first to adopt a loan forgiveness program for those who enter the public interest field. Once again last week, the law school made news for being in the vanguard. But this time, it is in a way that is unworthy of its venerable heritage. After a ruling from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania, Harvard became the first school to reinstate a ban on military recruitment on campus. Until this ruling, the...

Investors seem to be betting that Congress will fix the asbestos mess this coming year.... We suspect they're too optimistic, and for now we take more heart from last week's landmark decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the $1.2 billion Combustion Engineering settlement. ...[O}ur view is that the judiciary is finally exercising some adult supervision over a mess of its own making. Combustion Engineering, a unit of European construction giant ABB, had become a model of how trial lawyers abuse "prepackaged" bankruptcies to rake in millions for their unimpaired clients, while leaving real cancer victims with...